How to Paint a Dead Man – Sarah Hall

The great thing about reading the Booker long list is that I read books I would never normally pick up and am occasionally rewarded by finding a gem like this. I shouldn’t have liked this book – it has virtually no plot and has whole chapters about a person who paints bottles. It sounds like the sort of book I’d run a mile from, but for some reason I loved it!

I was transfixed from the first page. The heart-breaking emotions of a woman who has lost her twin brother affected me straight away. I think I had the tissues out within a few pages and it is so rare for me to be moved by a book that I knew this was going to be something special.

The second chapter introduces the life of an Italian painter, and while I found this section the weakest of the three, it was an important lull in the heightened emotions of the surrounding sections.

The final scene describes the father of the twins and his battle for survival after he becomes trapped in the hills. The book weaves together these three separate scenes, and that is all they are really, exceptionally well. There is no plot – just glimpses into the lives of these three characters.

I don’t know how this book managed to grip me from beginning to end when so many seemingly similar books have failed. I can only assume that Sarah Hall has an outstanding talent, or is perfectly in tune with my fears and emotions.

Sarah Hall is from Cumbria, so the occasional snippets of dialect may prove difficult for some to understand, but as I spent my teenage years in the Lake District this wasn’t a problem for me.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It deserves it’s place on the Booker long list and I plan to seek out all her previous books.

39 Comments

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I am looking forward to reading this. I am intrigued and think that it’s possibly one of those books that you can’t give much away whilst listing your thoughts because there isn’t much to give away, that it’s all in the writing.
That’s what’s so great about challenging ourselves to read the entire longlist: we’ll read books that we may not normally pick up instead of just reading the ones that immediately appeal.

I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed this. I’ve read all three of Sarah Hall’s previous books and I think she is an incredible talent too. Of the three my least favourite was The Electric Michelangelo (it was a bit too baroque in its stylings for me!) but I think both Haweswater and The Carhullan Army are little masterpieces. Can’t wait for my copy of To Paint a Dead Man to arrive.

There are some writers that just have that gift…they can be writing about anything, but manage to move you, sometimes to tears, with their words. This is going on the Jackie list. I’m going to need a separate sheet of paper just for your recommendations!

You laugh, but that’s not a bad idea! Think of how many five stars I am missing!!!! And you are right, I was thinking about commenting that Connie May Fowler just speaks to my heart. It is a hard thing to explain. Now, I just downloaded a book on my Kindle a couple of days ago by an author that weaves lighthouses into her mysteries. I have high expectations. It could be the most boring book, but if it is about lighthouses, I may fall in love. Be prepared for unsubstantiated, emotional gushing.

Unlike you, I wasn’t planning on reading the Booker longlist. I’d decided I do want to read The Wilderness and The Little Stranger, and that’s all I set out to do (I’d read the Coetzee irrespective, because I love his writing). However, this book is the one that keeps flashing in my head, anytime I think of the Booker longlist. And the other one is Heliopolis – specially as it’s based in South America.

So, I decided I’d read three, and now I want to read five. How soon before I’ll say I want to read them all?

I’m not sure you’ll want to read them all – but I think there will be a few others that need to be added to your list! I am half way through Not Untrue and Not Unkind and it is stunning. I’ll let you know if the ending is good, but I think you may need to add it to the list too! Then there are a few more I haven’t even started yet, but the judging looks amazing this year – I have a feeling they are all going to be great.

That sounds very interesting. I’ve never read anything by Sarah Hall before but her name has cropped up enough for me to be curious. I very much doubt I’ll get round to this one this year but it will be in my list for 2010.

I have been interested in a few of her books before – mainly due to the Cumbria connection, but somehow never got round to reading one. I’m so pleased I have now discovered her and will try to read all her books now.

I’ve been very curious to hear more about some of the books on the Booker long list since, as usual, I seem to have encountered very few of them. This one sounds fantastic, and luckily I don’t always require a good deal of plot in my books as long as the characters are interesting. Thanks for the great review!

I’m utterly sold on this from what you say. I love this kind of interwoven “story”. And it’s so refreshing to find that it exists, after witnessing yet another long lecture this morning on a writers’ site that shall remain nameless about Dwight V Swain, and how if a book didn’t have “staeks” and “peril” it wasn’t a proper book. If you read that kind of thing enough, you begin to believe it’s true. So how lovely to come here and find you recommending what looks like a gem.

It is a shame that there are sites out there dictating what makes a proper book – this book is the perfect example of how a non-standard story really works. I hope you enjoy reading it if you do decide to pick it up.

Interesting! I wasn’t a big fan of Quickening Maze, but loved this one. My favourite so far is The Wilderness. I look forward to seeing what you think of the rest of the list. Are you planning to read them all?

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Note: All books on this blog are rated on a five star system according to how much I enjoyed them. The ratings are not an indication of writing quality nor how enjoyable you may find reading them.
I am notoriously fussy in my reading tastes, so the star rating will only help if you have a similar reading taste to mine. I tend to abandon books I am not enjoying.